The Victorian internet : the remarkable story of the telegraph and the nineteenth centuryʾs on-line pioneers /
Tom Standage.
- New York : Walker and Co., 1998.
- ix, 227 pages : illustrations ; 19 cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. [214]-217) and index.
The mother of all networks Strange, fierce fire Electric skeptics The thrill electric Wiring the world Steam-powered messages Codes, hackers, and cheats Love over the wires War and peace in the global village Information overload Decline and fall The legacy of the telegraph
A colorful tale of scientific discovery and technological cunning, The Victorian Internet tells the story of the telegraph's creation and remarkable impact, and of the visionaries, oddballs, and eccentrics who pioneered it. By 1865 telegraph cables spanned continents and oceans, revolutionizing the ways countries dealt with one another. The telegraph gave rise to creative business practices and new forms of crime. Romances blossomed over the wires. Secret codes were devised by some users, and cracked by others. The benefits of the network were relentlessly hyped by its advocates and dismissed by its skeptics. And attitudes toward everything from news gathering to war had to be completely rethought." "The telegraph unleashed the greatest revolution in communications since the development of the printing press. Its saga offers many parallels to that of the Internet in our own time--and is a fascinating episode in the history of technology. Book jacket.